50 years on, Carlisle’s season in the sun remains football’s greatest ever feat
(Don’t take our word for it…listen to Bill Shankly!)
BILL SHANKLY called it football’s ‘greatest feat’ and half a century on Carlisle United’s promotion to the top tier of English football still stands scrutiny.
Perhaps it was the scale of improbability, the audacity of such an unassuming club or the added drama of the false ending.
Whatever it was, the slide back into the EFL basement as the 50th anniversary looms has emotional resonance.
New American owners are promising investment and better times ahead, yet their first full season in control will begin far removed from the heady heights of April 1974.
That was a month when Cumbria first became a county, an amalgamation of Cumberland and Westmorland. Terry Jacks topped the charts with Seasons in the Sun, which proved prescient, and Carlisle ended their greatest campaign with a 2-0 win over Aston Villa.
The goals were scored by Joe Laidlaw and Frank Clarke in front of nearly 12,500 at Brunton Park.
‘We thought we were up,’ recalls left back John Gorman. ‘We were hugging, lifting each other up. Celebrating on the pitch. Then we realised that we weren’t up and we had to wait for Orient.’
Carlisle finished third and this was the first time three teams would go up from the second tier. Until then it had been just the top two. This they knew well. They’d finished third with no reward in 1966-67, during the first spell under Alan Ashman, a manager who then left for West Bromwich Albion, where he won the FA Cup, and Olympiacos in Greece before returning to Carlisle in 1972.
ASHMAN worked in tandem with Dick Young, the long-serving coach and later director of the club. ‘Alan left the training to Dick,’ says Gorman, whose long career as a coach included spells as the assistant to Glenn Hoddle at England and Tottenham.
‘Dick wanted pass, pass, pass, pass, pass. We were a push-andrun team. We would spend all our time working on skills, repetitive exercises, practising with two feet. Dick was one of the best. I based a lot of my coaching on what I had learned from him.
‘Alan would spend most of the day in his office. He would come out for 10 minutes in his big sheepskin coat, have a look at us and go back inside. We wondered what he did but he was signing players and building the team.’
Ashman built a good team, led by their inspirational young captain Bill Green in the heart of defence. Allan Ross was a legend in goal, amassing a record 466 Carlisle appearances. Peter Carr, bruising at right back. Gorman, an attacking force at left back.
There were Les O’Neill, Stan Ternent, Ray Train and Graham Winstanley. There was the multi-talented Chris Balderstone who, two months after that win against Villa, was top-scoring for Leicestershire in a county cricket cup final at Lord’s. Two years later, Balderstone was facing down the West Indies pace attack on his Test debut.
In between, in September 1975, after moving to Doncaster Rovers, he featured in competitive fixtures in both the County Championship and the Football League on the same day.
He was 51 not out after the first day’s play against Derbyshire at Chesterfield, drove to Belle Vue to play in a 1-1 draw against Brentford, then back to complete his century the next day (run out 116) and take three for 28 as Leicestershire won by 135 runs and clinched the County Championship title. Carlisle had an array of attacking options. Bobby Owen, Dennis Martin, Laidlaw and Clarke. ‘So many goals in the team,’ says Gorman.
They were third after beating Villa but Leyton Orient still had one to play, also against Villa, on the following Friday. Orient trailed by two points and it was two points for a win, but they had a better goal average so any victory would take them up into third and dislodge Carlisle.
Nearly 30,000 packed into Brisbane Road, numbers swelled by quite a few interlopers. ‘More in hope than expectation,’ says Malcolm Fawcett, one of those in the away end, cheering on Villa in his blue-and-white scarf. ‘With Carlisle it’s usually the hope that kills you but the expectation seemed to get to Orient.’
Another recalls the home team running out with bunches of gladioli. ‘They handed them out to the crowd before the game,’ says Harold Bowron, 80. ‘I can remember thinking, “I wouldn’t be doing that”. I’d have saved that until the end.’ Some Carlisle players and staff went to the game, others congregated at the
Cumberland News offices. Ultimately, it proved a joyous night for them and one of despair for Orient, who fought back from a goal down to equalise but could not find a winner.
Carlisle were up. Jubilant fans made their way from Brisbane Road to Trafalgar Square and celebrated with supporters of Liverpool and Newcastle, in London for the FA Cup final.
IT was in an interview ahead of the final at Wembley when Shankly, who started his managerial career at Brunton Park, said: ‘Let me tell you about my old club Carlisle United who last night were promoted to the first division for the first time. That is the greatest feat in the history of the game.’
The London branch of Carlisle’s supporters club hatched from that euphoric night and is still going strong. Forty years later, they made t-shirts featuring the quote. Gorman still has his, and is not about to disagree with Shankly, though he and Hoddle led Swindon Town to the Premier League in 1993.
‘Very similar,’ says the 74-year-old. ‘A good group of players, good characters playing attractive football.’
Carlisle were top of Division One three games into the next season, with wins over Chelsea, Middlesbrough and Tottenham but they were relegated, never to return. At least, not yet. They have not made it above the third tier since 1986.
The season in the sun is a fading memory but those who were there will not forget the achievement nor its magnitude.
DAVE CHALLINOR became player-manager at Colwyn Bay in May 2010, the same month Stockport were relegated from League One. Since then, Challinor has won promotion seven times. First with Colwyn Bay, three times with Fylde, once with Hartlepool and on Saturday for the second time with Stockport, completing their journey back to League One.